


A Star Perished

by Skybreaker



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Betelgeuse, Gen, Short Story, Stars, galaxy, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 07:31:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1770820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skybreaker/pseuds/Skybreaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day when a star died.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Star Perished

**Author's Note:**

> Also may be viewed [here](http://figment.com/books/798152-A-Star-Perished)  
> Writted for LTC 2014 July Prompt

It was the hottest day our galaxy could remember in the past hundred years.

Just a hundred? Not really much for a galaxy. However, that was quite a significant hundred, I guess. Every second of it was filled with anxiety. Every particle of the space matter was waiting for something to happen. And it finally did.

In a single moment a huge blast occured blowing off all the stardust and small asteroids on its way. The galaxy shook, the stars were trembling. Heat filled the space. There was so much of it that no metal we know could resist that temperature. Ten million kelvins! That’s eighteen million degrees Fahrenheit or somewhere in the ballpark. Soon it was slightly colder. How soon? Who knows. Stars do not count, neither does the galaxy.

It was the day when Betelgeuse died. We also used to call it Alpha Orionis, or a red supergiant. And boom! There’s nothing but reddish stardust everywhere. Tragic but true. Just like when outstanding people die.

Betelgeuse was one of the largest and most luminous observable stars. It used to be eighty thousand times brighter than the Sun. It was supposed to explode as a supernova. The galaxy couldn’t see it (as supernovae are as bright as the whole galaxy) but it was sure it was the most beautiful supernova in the whole Universe. The galaxy wondered what has left. It was too blind to see by then.

There were three possible scenarios. Betelgeuse could leave a neutron star, or a black hole, or become a white midget. The second one was what the galaxy feared most. Stars would die then. Orion constellation would die. Everything would vanish and never come back again.

It’s gonna be all right, Bellatrix told her. She was one of the closest to Betelgeuse. The galaxy blinked and sighed with relief. It saw a lot of plasma forming a beautiful reddish nebula, and little white sphere inside of it. That was Betelgeuse’s heart. What a pure thing, the galaxy gasped.

If Betelgeuse had been a human and I had been an ancient Egyptian, I would have made a special canopic jar for its red ash. And if I was in charge of giving names to new space objects, I would call that one the Crimson Nebula.

The galaxy knew that the white midget will once grow and die too. It was used to tragic things like that. But it was always painful and will always be.

Earth didn’t feel all of that anyway. It rarely does. It lives and doesn’t know that incredible things are happening at the moment. Just like we do. Our stars die somewhere and we’re too far to see it. Or just too blind, the galaxy might say.


End file.
